Uplifting the world through art, one painting at a time.

August 21, 2009

As a child growing up in Australia in the 1970's my life was framed by polaroid moments. My Uncle worked as an engineer, traveling all over the world on big ocean-going cargo ships. Each time he visited us he brought many wild and exotic presents - many of them featuring the latest technology. His visits were a time of great excitement and heightened awareness of the joys of life.

Andy Warhol - "Jean-Michel Basquiat" 1982 - Polaroid

My greatest source of fascination was the polaroid camera he brought with him when he came to stay. It was a big clunky folding thing - but if felt like a doorway into a magical world - instant photographs. Somehow it seemed like a whole team of chemists and scientists were at work inside that little box!

Ever since then, the polaroid camera came to symbolize for me, and for many others, the synthesis of warm happy childhood moments, art, and technology before it became a data stream.

I love the analog qualities of film. It offers the opportunity of an infinity of variations not available to digital cameras. And the polaroid took that one step further by adding an element of immediacy. I don't think that any other camera captured so many "moments" in the lives of so many - each one a unique moment that could never be re-captured in the same way.

My artist friend and business partner Josse Ford expressed it perfectly when she said, "Polaroid captured 'moments of truth' whereas with digital photography we don't know what is real anymore". In each photo we could see the talent of the artist - it wasn't something that could be adjusted or photoshopped and made to lie. "Polaroid symbolizes our desire to return to a more honest world".

Artists everywhere embraced the polaroid. Names like Andy Warhol, David Hockney, and William Wegman to name but a few..

Polaroid was founded in the Boston area by the inventor Edwin Land who amassed a team of the best and brightest minds from MIT. It was the Google or Apple of its day. Think about that...

But as we now all know only too well Polaroid didn't change with the times. The company didn't adapt well to the world of video and then digital cameras. In 2001, it declared bankruptcy, and to the great sorrow of instant-film aficionados around the globe, stopped production of instant analog film in June 2008. A sad day....

So it was with great excitement that we recently happened upon "The Impossible Project" - a venture based in The Netherlands with a mission to bring back instant film:

"Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras.."

Impossible b.v. embraces the philosophy of Edwin Land himself:

"Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible"

"Impossible b.v. has acquired the complete film production equipment in Enschede (NL) from Polaroid, has signed a 10-year lease agreement on the factory building; and has engaged the most experienced team of Integral Film experts worldwide.

The Impossible mission is NOT to re-build Polaroid Integral film but (with the help of strategic partners) to develop a new product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimised components, produced with a streamlined modern setup. An innovative and fresh analog material, sold under a new brand name that perfectly will match the global re-positioning of Integral Films."

One really special thing we can see is the great love that people have for this project. It symbolizes the desire that we all have to bring back infinite variations of light and creativity - unlimited and unconstrained by the quantization distortions of our current digital age.

August 19, 2009

February 08, 2009

"There is something in me that is stronger than my body which is often given new heart by it. In some people this inner power seems almost non-existent, but with me it is greater than my physical strength. Without it I should die, but in the end it will burn me up - I suppose I mean my imagination, that dominates me and drives me on."

January 19, 2008

I'm a fan of big-wave surfing. One winter I was on a painting trip in Oahu, when I went for a drive to the pipeline to watch some of the big wave surfers catch some big ones. That day the waves were enormous and only about six surfers were out. Scores of surfers and tourists sat on the shore and watched in awe at these tiny specks, dwarfed by massive crashing waves as high as buildings, and marveled at the courage of man.

Last week was the Mavericks Surf contest in Half Moon Bay and today the elite of the world surfers wait on call, for the go ahead for Eddie Aikau invitational big wave surf event at the Pipeline in Hawaii, for the waves to meet the 40 foot requirement. The New York Times ran an article on the preparation these surfers put into their craft. As well as being superb athletes they spend hours studying weather patterns, ocean currents and whatever it takes to understand the movement of the ocean. Such painstaking preparation can mean the difference between life and death. With waves over 50 foot high there is no room for error.

I paint on location. The first thing I do when I arrive in a beautiful place such as Hawaii is spend a few days just looking at the ocean. Studying it's waves, it's light, it's energy until I feel I have reached an understanding of the special gifts that the location has to offer. This is absolutely vital if you want to capture the spirit of a place on the canvas.

Art is like surfing. You have to love it and be willing to do whatever it takes to master your craft. You have to have a big vision and you have to have a big passion for the vision that you want to share with the world. You have to be willing to whatever it takes to get it out in the world. I can think of no more noble calling than to help up a torch for what is great and beautiful and light. The following picture is one of the great surfing locations on Maui. I painted it because when I watch Big Wave surfers I am transported into a place that reflects the courage and grace of the human spirit, dancing with the enormous power of Nature. A great piece of art like Van Gogh's "Starry Night" or one of Turners paintings does the same thing for me. So how about you, what inspires the arti spirit for you?

January 16, 2008

Last weekend I went to the LA weekly art show "Some Paintings" at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. Featuring the work of over 70 living Los Angeles painters, curated by LA Weekly arts writer, Doug Harvey the exhibition was a huge success. Parking was a crazy experience for me. I'm used to zipping around Manhattan on the subway, not sitting in a long snaking traffic queue.

I didn't see a huge amount of art that resonated for me but there were some quite interesting landscapes by David Lloyd in the William Turner Gallery. The smooth lusciousness of the finish and the bright colors were gorgeous.

The event was packed with artists, their families and collectors. It was quite a feat in patience to see all the different exhibits.

Other pieces of art that i liked:

You can see the rest of the photos from the show here, in my photo albums.

As I left a performance piece was going on outside. The artists were jumping up and down on a car covered with a pile of rubbish, yelling and beating it with sticks. Perhaps a fitting tribute to the state of modern art today, just kidding :-)

August 19, 2007

Yesterday i saw an excellent documentary called "The Eloquent Nude" directed by Ian McCluskey. The film tells the story of the relationship between Weston and his muse, Charis Wilson. Charis inspired a series of nudes that inspired some of the most famous and beautiful images of the twentieth century. Weston was also known for his black and white abstractions of nature. Their relationship unfolds through interviews with Charis, aged 90, telling her stories, Weston's black and white photographs, and engaging reenactments of the couple's travels.

Edward Weston lived on the California coast, near Big Sur, and was a contemporary of Steiglitz, Georgia O'Keefe, and Ansel Adams. The 1940s was my favorite time in American art history. So many great artists and photographers came together in New York and California, immortalizing the beauty and wildness of nature. A spiritual thread runs through their work, a desire to know truth and perfection through the practice of their art. Interestingly enough, it was through the stress of commercial pressure that their relationship started to disintegrate. The happiest years of their work together was when they were traveling around the country on the first Guggenheim grant awarded to a photographer.

I feel a close affinity with the artist from those days because traveling around in my RV painting the national parks in the States is such a source of joy for me. I have traveled all over the world, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Africa but it still the grand mountains and the wild deserts that inspires and informs my art. I am preparing for another art journey to the mountain and deserts of New Mexico. The stormy skies are quite something in late August! I'll be adding some photographs from my last trip there to the photo galleries soon.

Edward Weston photographed shells, forlorn desert dunes, the San Louis Obisco coastline, the Sierra mountains, clouds in the desert. And his eye turned everything that he saw into a window, that leads us into a more refined, shimmering world.

The film can be seen today at 5pm at the Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Ave S., Minneapolis. I would highly recommend make the effort and see the film as it is hauntingly memorable. If you don't live in Minneapolis, support the project by buying a DVD here.

August 12, 2007

Some of my photos from the Big Island have been published in the Schmap Hawaii Guide. This is an on-line worldwide travel guide. As you know Hawaii is my favorite place for plein-air painting trips. Hawaii is an interesting melting point of many different cultures: Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese. It also had a beautiful light for painting as well as some of the most stunning coastlines. If you would like to read more about Hawaii's colorful past I would highly recommend James Michener's "Hawaii."

August 09, 2007

I had a fabulous trip to Berlin earlier this year. I loved the city. It seemed everywhere you looked there was a photo opportunity just waiting to be taken. My favorite shopping area KaDaWe, the biggest department store in western Europe. It was filled with beautiful objects d'art. Lots of great museums and galleries.

Anyway you can check out the new photos in my albums or over all my Flickr account, here.

September 08, 2006

A new charity, United States Artists, will announce today an ambitious plan to provide support to working artists, starting with a grant program that will be one of the most generous in existence.

Fifty artists working in a wide variety of disciplines and at various career stages will receive $50,000 each, no strings attached. The first recipients will be announced on Dec. 4.

However, to be eligible for a grant you will need to be nominated.

"Each year, nominations are made by an anonymous group of arts leaders, critics, scholars, and artists chosen by USA. Nominators do not know one another. There identities shall remain secret.

Nominators are asked to submit names of artists they believe show an extraordinary commitment to their craft. Artists at any stage of career development may be nominated. To be considered for fellowships, artists must be 21 years of age or older and U.S. citizens or legal residents in any U.S. state. Artists must have the following:

Expert artistic skills

Received artistic education or training (formal or informal)

Attempted to derive income from those skills

Been actively engaged in creating artwork and presenting it to the public."

July 15, 2006

The NYT has an interesting article on the acquistion of a portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer which was bought last month by the billionaire collector Ronald S. Lauder and is on display his Neue Galerie for German and Austrian art, on the Upper East Side, NYC.

"The art market operates according to its own logic, which may have nothing to do with the quality of the art. Value is not price — whether the issue is a Klimt, or a ballplayer, or a chief executive paid millions of dollars, who runs his company into the ground.

But Oscar Wilde had it right about cynics, price and value. It’s only natural to play the skeptic when the art world is a circus of profligacy, drunk with cash, and when dimwitted speculators make headlines, wasting fortunes on bad art. Who knows what the most money paid in private for a painting really is: maybe $135 million. For that amount, assuming it is what Mr. Lauder paid, his portrait of Adele, a hedonistic masterpiece, will be talked about in terms of how many lives might have been saved or how many lifted from poverty for this sum.

It’s inevitable. But ludicrous. The Met spent more than $45 million two years ago for a tiny Duccio “Madonna and Child” whose modesty seems its most endearing virtue. The tipping point between endearing and hedonistic is evidently somewhere around $100 million.

As for the border separating public interest from private enterprise, it has never been fixed. The Neue Galerie is Christie’s annex now, exhibiting paintings for sale ($15 general admission, no children under 12 allowed), whose display is also a public service.

Someday Adele will be seen for just what she is: beautiful, a gift to the city. And $135 million may even come to look like a bargain."